This research was supported by the Center for Advanced Soft-Electronics (Global Frontier Project, CASE-2015M3A6A5072945, 30%) of the National Research Foundation (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT, Korea. This work was also supported by the World Class 300 Project (S2482887, 70%) funded by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups, Korea.
Generally, an ocular disease affects the eye and/or the visual system. Examples of ocular diseases include diabetic retinopathy, ocular neovascularization, age-related macular degeneration, microbial keratitis, glaucoma, cataract, and presboyopia. Some ocular diseases, like diabetic retinopathy, ocular neovascularization, age-related macular degeneration, microbial keratitis, and glaucoma, can be treated using a contact lens placed directly on the surface of the eye. One type of contact lens that can be used to treat these ocular diseases is a drug eluding contact lens. For example, drug eluding contact lenses can employ polymeric hydrogels that incorporate the drug solution, store the drug within a hollow section, or immobilize the drug on the surface. In each case, the drug eluding contact lens can release drugs into the eye in a sustained manner. However, many ocular diseases can be better treated using a contact lens with a controllable drug delivery system (e.g., based on a sensor recording of a molecule within the eye) rather than the sustained drug delivery provided by the eluding contact lens. While sensors can be embedded in contact lenses (e.g., a glucose oxidase sensor to measure tear glucose level, a pressure sensor to measure intraocular pressure, etc.), they can be complex, bulky, and impractical.
Other ocular diseases, like cataracts and presboyopia, can be treated using an intraocular lens, which can be implanted within the eye during refractive surgery. While such refractive surgery can replace a crystalline lens that is aged or diseased, the intraocular lens generally cannot correct the patient's distance vision and/or the active change of dioptric power. Accordingly a multi-focusing intraocular lens may increase the visual acuity of patients with an intraocular lens.